Friday, September 23, 2016

LA GRANDE, UNION COUNTY OR - 2 UNVACCINATED PIT BULLS WERE ALLOWED TO RUN LOOSE AND ATTACK 2 TEENAGERS IN SEPARATE INCIDENCES

Two dogs have been classified as "dangerous" and may be euthanized after they attacked a La Grande High School student Thursday morning as she was walking to school.

Adrianna Gockley said she was bitten around 7:30 a.m. The junior at La Grande High School was walking by herself on the corner of Fir Street and Jackson Avenue when she sawTWO PIT BULLS running in front of her.

“Then they started toward me, barking and growling,” Gockley said. “I kind of paused and took a step back. That’s when they started lunging and biting at me.”

Gockley said she felt a bite in her thigh and was immediately knocked to the ground, landing on her side.

“After they started lunging, I got knocked on the ground,” she said. “I kicked one of them in the face, and that’s when they backed off for a few seconds. That’s when I started running, and they started lunging and biting at me again.”

A resident in the neighborhood saw her and, realizing the danger she was in, let her come into her house. Gockley said the woman was just as scared as she was.

The injuries sustained in the attack include a small puncture on her leg, which Gockley said was bleeding but not significantly deep. But she did get lightheaded and vomited from shock following the incident, and said she had swelling in her leg and lots of bruises, including on her arm, from being knocked over.

The attack was reported to the La Grande dispatch center at 7:30 a.m. Two La Grande Police officers and two Union County Sheriff’s officers immediately responded and began searching for the dogs, which were located at 7:56 a.m. The dogs were in a mobile home where one of their owners live. Law enforcement officers were directed there by people in the neighborhood.

Law enforcement officers contained the dogs before the Union County Sheriff’s Office Animal Enforcement officer arrived to seize them. The pit bulls have been quarantined at a La Grande area veterinarian office.

The dogs also reportedly attacked someone on Tuesday near where Gockley was bitten. Shallain Lewis, who lives at the corner of Fir Street and Jackson Avenue, said her daughter, also an LHS student, was attacked Tuesday morning.

Lewis said the attack on her daughter occurred Tuesday around 7:50 a.m. Lewis had an 8 a.m. appointment, and while getting ready to leave, she and her daughter heard barking outside and saw the dogs running around in her yard.

Once outside, the dogs ran up to her daughter who, according to Lewis, slid up against her car to try to avoid them, but she was bitten in the leg.

After she called animal control, Lewis was able to assess the damage to her daughter’s leg.

“It didn’t really break skin or draw any blood, but she was scared,” Lewis said of her daughter.

Lewis said she had never seen the dogs before that morning, but later on in the afternoon, she witnessed the dogs running up and down the street and causing traffic dangers.

Then Thursday morning, Lewis and her daughter also heard the commotion when Gockley was attacked by the dogs.

“I heard screaming and yelling, so I jumped out of bed and saw the two dogs,” she said.

The two pit bulls are owned separately by Shay Richards, 49, and her daughter, Isabelle Richards, 19, both of La Grande. Sgt. Bill Miller of the Union County Sheriff’s Office said that both will be cited on charges of having a dog at large, having a dog without a rabies vaccination and maintaining a dog as a public nuisance.

Classified as “dangerous” because of Tuesday’s and Thursday’s attacks, each dog will be euthanized after 10 days of being quarantined unless its owner files an appeal and pays a $500 deposit and a $25 fee. The deposit would cover the cost of holding a dog during the appeal process, Miller said.

The pit bulls, Ruca and Honey, are both 17-month-old females, according to one of the owners. The owner said the dogs got out Thursday because of a broken latch. The dogs were ill at ease, because the family had moved to the neighborhood from another in La Grande four days ago.

The Thursday attack occurred a few blocks southwest of Greenwood Elementary School. Greenwood Principal Ryan Westenskow, after learning of the attack and that the dogs were loose, put a low-level lockdown in place. Students were not allowed to leave the school building until the dogs were found.

Westenskow stayed outside the school welcoming students but also urging them to hurry in. The principal and other school staff members remained on the lookout for the dogs.

“We kept our eyes on the perimeter of the building,” Westenskow said.

Gockley said Thursday afternoon she knows she’s lucky she avoided more severe injuries, but she is already more apprehensive about strange dogs during walks around town.

5 comments:

The pit bulls were ill at ease? Well now, let's hope these two Richards women are now so ill at ease that they move their mobile home to some other neighborhood -- this time without pit bull type dogs.

Typical "Welcome to the Neighborhood" crap from pit bull owners. A broken latch you say? How about you get your lazy ass out of bed and take your pit bulls out on a leash? Too much trouble for you? Then why do you have two pit bulls?

THE CODE OF ALABAMA - 1975

Title: 6 CIVIL PRACTICE

Section 6-5-120

Defined.

A "nuisance" is anything that works hurt, inconvenience or damage to another. The fact that the act done may otherwise be lawful does not keep it from being a nuisance. The inconvenience complained of must not be fanciful or such as would affect only one of a fastidious taste, but it should be such as would affect an ordinary reasonable man.

(Code 1907, §5193; Code 1923, §9271; Code 1940, T. 7, §1081

Section 6-5-121

_____________________

Distinction between public and private nuisances; right of action generally.

Nuisances are either public or private. A public nuisance is one which damages all persons who come within the sphere of its operation, though it may vary in its effects on individuals. A private nuisance is one limited in its injurious effects to one or a few individuals. Generally, a public nuisance gives no right of action to any individual, but must be abated by a process instituted in the name of the state. A private nuisance gives a right of action to the person injured.

Use of force in defense of a person.

(a) A person is justified in using physical force upon another person in order to defend himself or herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by that other person, and he or she may use a degree of force which he or she reasonably believes to be necessary for the purpose. A person may use deadly physical force, and is legally presumed to be justified in using deadly physical force in self-defense or the defense of another person pursuant to subdivision (4), if the person reasonably believes that another person is:

(1) Using or about to use unlawful deadly physical force.

(2) Using or about to use physical force against an occupant of a dwelling while committing or attempting to commit a burglary of such dwelling.

(3) Committing or about to commit a kidnapping in any degree, assault in the first or second degree, burglary in any degree, robbery in any degree, forcible rape, or forcible sodomy.

(4) In the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or has unlawfully and forcefully entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or federally licensed nuclear power facility, or is in the process of sabotaging or attempting to sabotage a federally licensed nuclear power facility, or is attempting to remove, or has forcefully removed, a person against his or her will from any dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle when the person has a legal right to be there, and provided that the person using the deadly physical force knows or has reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act is occurring. The legal presumption that a person using deadly physical force is justified to do so pursuant to this subdivision does not apply if:

a. The person against whom the defensive force is used has the right to be in or is a lawful resident of the dwelling, residence, or vehicle, such as an owner or lessee, and there is not an injunction for protection from domestic violence or a written pretrial supervision order of no contact against that person;

b. The person sought to be removed is a child or grandchild, or is otherwise in the lawful custody or under the lawful guardianship of, the person against whom the defensive force is used;

c. The person who uses defensive force is engaged in an unlawful activity or is using the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle to further an unlawful activity; or

d. The person against whom the defensive force is used is a law enforcement officer acting in the performance of his or her official duties.

(b) A person who is justified under subsection (a) in using physical force, including deadly physical force, and who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and is in any place where he or she has the right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground.

(c) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a), a person is not justified in using physical force if:

(1) With intent to cause physical injury or death to another person, he or she provoked the use of unlawful physical force by such other person.

(2) He or she was the initial aggressor, except that his or her use of physical force upon another person under the circumstances is justifiable if he or she withdraws from the encounter and effectively communicates to the other person his or her intent to do so, but the latter person nevertheless continues or threatens the use of unlawful physical force.

(3) The physical force involved was the product of a combat by agreement not specifically authorized by law.

(d) A person who uses force, including deadly physical force, as justified and permitted in this section is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force, unless the force was determined to be unlawful.

(e) A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force described in subsection (a), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force used was unlawful.